Celebrating the beginning of the campaign, BRC Director Jeremy Beadles said: “What we need to develop is a small number of important, recognisable environmental messages that consumers can understand and which will build awareness and change habits.”
Brand support
The “umbrella” partnership of a number of stakeholders including the retail industry is a unique feature of the waste awareness project. According to the British Retail Consortium, individual retailers such as Waitrose, Tesco and Focus Wickes will contribute to the campaign by displaying the “Rethink Rubbish” logo and message on store shelves and aisle hangers.
They will also accommodate the “Rethink Rubbish” six metre high dustbin – due to be touring the country from June – in or outside their stores.
Plaudit
Environment minister Michael Meacher patted the retailers on the back at the launch, stating: “I am pleased to see that a major part of the “Rethink Rubbish” Campaign, due to start next month, is based around the retail industry. We know that retailers can have a major influence on their customers.”
He also said he hoped that involvement in the campaign would lead retailers to not only promote waste reduction and recycling but to consider: “how their businesses can impact in the wider sense on the choices made by their customers…if we are to change people’s attitudes we have to make recycling more visible, not something to be hidden away as if we were ashamed of it.”
NWAI chairman Bob Lisney added: “The challenge is to address these issues through an umbrella campaign with a fresh, innovative approach…to motivate consumers.”
The campaign is the first consumer waste awareness initiative that the BRC has been involved with.
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